Synopses & Reviews
After exhausting their resources in the slums of Los Angeles, a junkie and his wife settle in London's "murder mile," the city's most violent and criminally corrupt section. Persevering past failed treatments, persistent temptation, urban ennui, and his wife's ruinous death wish, the nameless narrator fights to reclaim his life.
In prose that could peel paint from a car, Tony O'Neill re-creates the painfully comic, often tragic days of a recovering heroin addict.
Review:
"Novelist O'Neill (
Digging the Vein), a recovered heroin addict and lapsed rocker, draws on his experiences for this fast-paced, compulsively readable (if occasionally self-indulgent) portrait of a young would-be rocker junkie. After most of his belongings are repossessed (or sold for drug money) and his wife Susan admits to embezzling thousands of dollars from her company to support their habit, the unnamed narrator and his wife flee Los Angeles for his former home in England. There, he tries frantically to plug back into the London drug and music scenes and struggles to get clean. Fighting violent withdrawal symptoms, living in squalor on London's infamous Clapton Road (aka 'Murder Mile') and grappling with a sadistic and controlling rehab doctor, O'Neill's antihero paints a grim, bloody picture of compulsive self-destruction. As veteran of half a dozen bands (including the Brian Jonestown Massacre), O'Neill gives himself too much space to voice his professional grievances, and there's a tendency to name-drop. Still, the novel's consistent tone of urgency and desperation creates a gritty world of its own that compels despite its flaws."
Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Synopsis:
From a star of the underground lit scene comes a darkly humorous and tragic novel about the hells of heroin addiction.
About the Author
Tony O'Neill's books include
Digging the Vein,
Seizure Wet Dreams,
Songs from the Shooting Gallery, and the
New York Times bestselling
Hero of the Underground. His essays, poems, and short stories have appeared extensively online and in print. He is a survivor of heroin addiction, crack abuse, rehab, fatherhood, and stints in the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Kenickie, and Marc Almond's band. He lives in New York with his wife and daughter.
Don't Miss
